Edgewood educator appeals to judge for help

AUSTIN — Edgewood Independent School District Superintendent Jose A. Cervantes appealed for help from the courts Thursday because the desperately property-poor school district isn't getting it from Texas lawmakers.

“We're not getting funded appropriately. There isn't the funds that we need to try and move forward,” Cervantes testified in the ongoing school funding trial. “We're stumbling right now. We're bleeding right now. The time is now. We need the state's help on this.”

The San Antonio school district was the lead plaintiff in the 1984 school funding case resulting in a landmark and unanimous Texas Supreme Court ruling five years later finding the state's public school system unconstitutional. More than 600 Texas school districts are again suing the state on claims that lawmakers are not providing adequate or equitable funding to the state's 1,024 school districts.

Nearly 97 percent of Edgewood children come from low-income families.

Cervantes described the district as full of “broken down and boarded up” homes, telling state district Judge John Dietz, “you can see dogs and even chickens in the streets.”

“It's just the opposite of Alamo Heights or Northside” school districts, he said of Edgewood's more prosperous San Antonio neighbors.

A fairly high number of Edgewood students come and go, creating an unstable environment. Edgewood's student mobility rate is 20 percent, but “it's growing. It's growing, growing,” Cervantes said, adding that it has decreased performance noticeably.

Cervantes testified that the cuts imposed by the Legislature saw his district's 2011-12 funding fall $4.2 million. A district audit showed the figure was closer to $4.5 million.

Those cuts forced a 15 percent reduction in classroom and other supplies, as well as cutting early-intervention programs for at-risk students.

The district also reduced overtime for teachers and support staff providing additional instruction outside the classroom, and it reduced its summer school programs from two five-days-a-week sessions to one four-days-a-week session.

Cervantes testified that last year, his district spent $6.3 million on 2,200-plus students who need bilingual instruction when the allotted state funding for bilingual education was only about $957,000 that year. He said his district has had to offer stipends to teachers who are certified bilingual or certified ESL, and that it's getting more and more competitive for such teachers in San Antonio but also everywhere in Texas.

He testified that the district offers full-day pre-K for all 4-year-olds and 3-year-olds and that the program extends to instruction on the basics such as how to brush your teeth.

Asked if such programs would be considered “wish-list items” by other districts, Cervantes said: “It's not a wish list. It's necessary.”

Cervantes said most students in pre-K are desperately in need of training for basic life skills. He recalled one student who was recently waiting at a bus stop in pajamas and without shoes. When the bus driver saw the student, he called the police.

Cervantes also said that after Fiesta San Antonio, it's not uncommon for very young children to be sent to school with cotton candy in their hair.

Cervantes said budget cuts have recently forced the district to close down its Coronado-Escobar school campus, leading to larger classes at other schools.

“I don't have the luxury to say, ‘It's going to be bad for a while,' and hope it gets better. That's why we're back here again. We're still needing that extra funding we need in past years,” he said.

School districts have produced dozens of superintendents and education experts in an effort to convince Dietz that Texas is not providing sufficient funding to meet academic standards set by lawmakers.

The state of Texas will start calling witnesses next week in an effort to defend the current school funding system.